Chapter 11
His name was Grady Cordell, and he wasn't dead or dying, but for all the help he might ever be able to give them, he might as well be a corpse, Heather thought. He was blind.
The bullet Arley fired at him clipped the bridge of his nose and did something to his vision. The cut was nasty, and Heather cleansed it as best she could with whiskey, and made a dressing and bandage of old flour sacks torn into strips. While she worked at the wound, Arley Santee sat in the yard with Honey by his side and the jar of whiskey in one hand. His back was propped against the chinaberry tree, and so was his rifle. The dog sat alert near the porch steps.
"Shit," Arley said. "Thought I had him right between the eyes. But it's better this way, now I think on it. The son of a bitch is blind as a mole, and might be I'm goin' to need him, anyhow."
Heather tied the bandage around the man's head and said, "Can I get you some water?"
"I-I'd appreciate some," he said, his voice deep and slow and brushed with honeysuckle.
"Give the bastard some corn, too," Arley commanded. "I got me some questions to ask him, and I don't want him faintin'. "
Obediently, Heather brought whiskey and water, guiding the liquor jar into Grady's hand first, then taking it back and giving him the water dipper. The deputy drank deeply of the whiskey and finished the water; she brought another dipper and he drained that, too.
"Enough," Arley said, tapping his own whiskey. "You-Grady Cordell-how come you sneak-in' around my place?"
A big man, broad in the shoulder and narrow of hip, Grady said slowly, "Reckon you know why I'm here, Arley."
Arley drank again, spat on the ground. " 'Spect I do, but you ought to of come with help, or maybe you didn't figure on gettin' shot."
"Didn't at that," Grady said, and Heather saw the seepage of blood through the makeshift bandage across his eyes, "but knowin' I was right about that old wider woman means something."
Arley grunted. "Means you're goin' to be a long time dead, you son of a bitch."
"What'd you get from old Miss Martin?" Grady asked. "A few dollars, some costume jewelry? The poor old woman didn't have much."
"That's a flat-out lie," Arley said, and bought himself another drink. "Why, me 'n Artis found nigh to three hundred dollars cash money, and all them jewels, and some old gold watches, to boot."
Blindly, big hands clenched, Grady said, "Why'd you have to kill her, then? You had it all; she never owned no big store of gold or nothin' like that; Miss Martin was just an old widder woman waitin' out her time to die."
Arley chuckled. "She don't have to wait no longer. Me 'n Artis purely had to knock her in the head after she told us where she kept the plunder hid. She knowed who we was. Just like you know, Grady Cordell."
"And I might not be the only one who knows," Grady said, then put his head into his hands as best he could, sitting there on the porch with his feet tied and his own handcuffs on his wrists.
"What you mean by that?" Arley asked. "Come on, what you mean by that."
"My head hurts. I-I didn't mean nothin', " Arley drank deeply of the fruit jar and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "You police bastard, I didn't figure you had the guts to walk up on our house by yourself. The sheriff come with you ? How come he ain't already bustin' in here?"
Grady rocked back and forth. "My-my head hurts."
"You didn't even know these women was here," Arley said thoughtfully. "The sheriff hisself would of throwed down on me time I pulled the trigger, so he ain't close by. What puzzles me is where he is-and the longer I figure on it, the more I 'spect he's out somewheres asettin' a trap for my brother. That's it, ain't it?"
Grady groaned, and somehow Heather sensed that the pain in him wasn't as great as he was pretending; he didn't wince when she cleaned the wound with whiskey, although that must have burned terribly. He was bluffing Arley in some fashion, trying to keep himself alive.
And possibly she and her sister, too. An old woman had known who Arley Santee was, and had been killed for knowing. Wouldn't he do the same to Honey and herself?
"You ain't so fuckin' smart," Arley said, slurring his words a bit. "I reckon I won't blow your fuckin' head clean off-not for a spell, anyway, not 'til after ol' Artis comes home. If he don't come back, and right soon, too, you're goin' to wish I'd killed you right off. I'll skin you like a goddamn coon, you po-lice bastard."
A reprieve, Heather thought. The officer had another lease on life, for as long as it took Artis Santee to return home from his trip to sell a murdered woman's jewelry. Then the deputy and two unlucky women would find graves in the riverbed.
"Well, now," Arley said, his head wagging, and Heather could see that he was more than a little drunk, "well, now, seems I got me a heap of company, for a little spell, at least. Shame you never got a look at these here two fine city women, Grady; fanciest pieces of ass I ever run across. One of 'em was cherry afore I busted it. Never figure ol' Arley to have no real pretty, high-class city women away out here in the woods, now would you?"
"Uh-uh," Grady Cordell answered, because he was expected to.
"Oldest 'un's a pure-D redheaded woman, and the littlest 'un's got brown hair on her pussy runs two inches deep and right springy. You ain't never had you no ass like they got, Grady. It ain't no countrified ass stall, but imagine city cunt, and you know somethin' else? They purely enjoy suckin' on a man's pecker, like it was striped candy." Arley laughed, a grating noise of cruelty and a promise of further degradation. "Course, they claimed they didn't want to stay around and fuck ol' Arley none-but they did; they sure as all billy hell did, and they're goin' to fuck him some more, too."
Honey said into a moment of silence, "I-I will, Arley."
"Sure you will-but when I say and like I say. And right now, I mean to screw your big sister, but you might just as well get bare assed, too. Might be I'll change off on your pussy. Never had me two naked women laid out side by side afore."
Grady Cordell lifted his bandaged face. "Look now, Arley, you don't have to pick on the women just to get back at me."
Arley got up off the ground, whiskey jar dangling from one hand, loaded rifle in the other. He strolled barefoot and gangling to the porch where he put down the jar. Then he slapped the deputy hard across the mouth.
"You damned right I don't have to do nothin', " Arley said. "I don't have to put up with your mouth, nor have to work in no fuckin' sawmill, nor have to stop makin' whiskey. I don't have to do a goddamn thing I don't want to do. So, right now I want to fuck these here two city sisters, and it makes me right glad that you don't like the idea. Makes me right happy to have you tied up yonder like a hog ready for the knife while I fuck me two pretty girls so close you can hear the sloshin'. "
Grady didn't answer, even though blood from a cut lip seeped from one corner of his mouth. Heather had never hated anyone the way she now hated Arley Santee. She watched the big man's hands clench and knew he was in pain, knew that the fear was in him of blindness more than of death. While her sister was taking off her clothes and walking to the porch, before Arley ordered Heather to remove hers, she took the opportunity to lay her hand upon his, to tell him tacitly that she understood and hoped he would also understand what she would have to do.
"Show your ass," Arley said, climbing out of his overalls.
Heather stood up and obeyed, because there was nothing else she could do, and her belly curled up inside. This was going to be even worse than being forced to have sex before her baby sister, worse than having to watch little Honey perform fellatio upon a man. There was another man present now, and even though he couldn't actually see them doing it, he could certainly hear what was going on. Arley would make sure of that
And now Heather was going to have to share Arley with her sister, or at least be touching while one or the other of them was laid.
"Yes, siree," Arley said, swaying a little, his pale eyes reddened from whiskey and his sharp teeth showing in a sneer. "Yes, mister po-liceman, this here is a outstandin' idea. I'll work on it some, and make it so you hurt all over, 'stead of just your thick head. Ain't nothin' would make me no madder'n to have to see or feel a woman gettin' fucked right by me, and knowin' I couldnt get my turn at her pussy. 'Spect you're goin' to get you the stone ache, time my brother gets home, account of I'm goin' to fuck these here city girls and all you'll have is a big ol' hard-on that you can't do nothin' with."
Heather stood in the gathering twilight, hearing the katydids in the brush, and the deep bass call of a low-flying bullbat. She felt the slightly cooler air of early evening upon her bare skin, j and the nipples of her breasts lifted.
"Just lie down right there where Grady can feel you next to him-but just your arm, or your hand, maybe. I ain't about to put my head in reach of them big fists when I'm screwin' you, woman. And, sis, you climb on up on the porch and lie down with your legs spraddled out, right there next to your redheaded sister. Hey now, Grady, you ain't never seen nothin' like this afore-even afore your eyes got shot out. The redheaded woman's named Heather, and she's got this here real fine white skin, all milky so you can see the blue veins down deep in her flesh. She's got red hair on her pussy, too, and big, soft tits.
"And the little 'un-like a little filly-tits ain't as big, but they taste just as sweet, And all that and she ain't old enough to vote, but she's sure old enough to fuck."
Heather glanced up at the deputy's expressionless face and saw the faint knotting of his jaw muscles. Oh, how she wished he could see again, that he could manage to reach out and tear off Arley Santee's head. Grady seemed big enough to do just that, powerful and strong. Maybe his sight would return, she hoped, the eyes themselves didn't seem to be injured, only the deep slice across the bridge of his nose had done something to a nerve. Maybe he could see again, and soon.
And maybe not. She was grasping at straws again, for now she was more certain than ever that Arley would never, never let them go, not alive.
"Got my pecker in my hand," Arley chorted. "Head of it shinin' like a new moon, and I'm puttin' one knee down between Heather's legs and the other 'un between Honey's. Sure wish you could make out these two fine pussies a-lookin' up at me with the hair on 'em and the pink lips ready for my prick. Got four titties pokin' up, and I'm feelin' all over 'em."
His right hand fondled Heather's breast, kneaded it, pushed down upon the nipple, and from the corner of her eyes, she saw his left hand doing the same thing to Honey's young-mounded breast. Terrible, she thought, so degrading to have to suffer his handlings, to be only a toy for his twisted lusts.
And Honey was shivering. Honey's hip brushed against Heather's, and she realized that her baby sister was squirming in passion. That was awful, too.
Arley said, "Goin' to stick my prick into the redheaded pussy now, goin' to run my fingers up into the little 'un's cunt and give her some finger fuckin' while I put my meat in her sister's hole."
Arley's body lowered to hers, and Heather shifted her thighs to accommodate him. The sooner she took him inside her vagina, the sooner the obnoxious act would be done with, she thought. And she denied the rising of excitement within her, because such a wanton response wasn't for her. Maybe for her gone-wild younger sister, but not for her.
"Feels good against her pussy," Arley grunted. "Feels all hot and soft and juicy on her cunt lips, Grady, too bad you ain't never goin' to get to screw it. Pushin' my cock right on in there now, Grady, I swear this here city pussy is sewed together with silks and satins and little pieces of hairy velvet."
Heather felt the slow, steady intrusion of the penis into her labia, felt the stretching of those outer lips and the giving of the inner ones as Arley's thing worked into her vagina inch by strong, meaty inch. She resisted, she kept her legs stiff and held her breath, but the juices flowed within her awakened vagina, and, as he thrust the full length of his penis into her sheath, the walls of it rippled sensuously upon it.
Heather's breath hissed out from between her clenched teeth and she rolled her head to one side in reflex. She saw her sister hunching upon Arley's hand, upon the two fingers buried to the knuckle inside Honey's small mound. Heather rolled back her head and closed her shocked eyes; she'd seen how Honey's right hand was locked upon Arley's wrist, how the girl was grinding upon the inserted fingers.
Lifting her arms, Heather spread them to keep from grabbing onto Arley's shoulders, for his strokes were stimulating her thing now, exciting the clitoris, and she fought not to be swept up in the urgency.
Her right hand came down atop Honey's left, and their fingers intertwined before Heather could pull back. Then Arley began to ram home his penis-his cock-he shoved his prick to the hilt and jerked it back only to pound it to the roots once more. Heather squeezed her sister's hand and her breath gusted out in noisy gaspings.
"Fuckin' her long and fuckin' her strong," Arley Santee panted, his crotch sledging against hers. "Hot and juicy inside-oh, yeah-soft and hot and wet-shakin' her ass and makin' her city cunt eat up my pecker now-oh, yeah."
Heather couldn't help herself any longer; flailing out with her free hand, she knew the lascivious rolling of her ass and the humping of her sweaty belly. She took the driving prick and reveled in its length, in the striking of the knob against her cervix, in the heft and thickness of the shaft plunging back and forth in her slick pussy.
The deputy held her hand, the one her sister wasn't clinging to. She'd stretched it that far out, feeling for comfort, for something else to hang onto. Grady Cordell's big fingers closed warmly over her hand, and his gentle grip was understanding.
The madness raked through her body, and with the cheeks of her ass clenching and loosening in rhythm, Heather held to the hands of two people while a third one fucked her, while she fucked Arley back in the most abandoned fashion, hiking her belly and pulling with her eager cunt.
"Fucks like a bitch with the pack after her pussy," Arley gasped. "Fuckin' me hard and mean, shakin' it like a snake-uh-uh-goin' to shoot it off up into her cunt, Grady-hot and slick and humpin' like a fool, and my prick's just a-swellin'-uh-uh--! "
He let it fly into her vagina, released the hot thick semen with a tremendous spewing of the stuff. Violently, insanely, Heather reacted by twisting and seesawing, by heaving her crotch up to his, and by moaning, hissing as her cunt pumped furiously up and down upon his suddenly stilled prick. She clenched the two hands holding her own, twisting them and shuddering as she climbed so quickly to her own maddened orgasm.
"I-oh yes, yes-I'm coming, coming! Oh, keep that meat up inside my pussy-grind it up my cunt and fill me full of your cream! Oh-oh! I can't stand it, can't stand . . . "
A convulsion rocked her vagina, its core her vibrant clitoris. Her labia writhed and her asshole tightened, Heather's head flew back and her eyes rolled whitely. Ripple after spasming ripple moved through her belly, and the hot gush of her love juices blended with his, mixed with his to ooze out of her pussy and over his limp balls and onto the boards of the porch. Her thighs were wet with more than sweat, and so was the crack of her ass.
Heather couldn't think, she could only feel. She wallowed in the feeling, in the slidy, slippery feeling of his prick moving slowly within the confines of her tremulous pussy. She loved his prick-any prick-every prick that had ever been hung on a man. She wanted them all, one at a time, or even tied together and stuffed like one gigantic sausage up her slit, spreading it and stretching it until it was at the point of exploding like a too-full balloon.
Glady would she blow up with it, scattering the wiggling little pieces of her cunt far and wide over the universe. There could be no better way, for that would not be dying, only turning into a searing nova.
Honey took away her hand, but Grady Cordell left his.